


Such an Injury

by notkingyet



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkingyet/pseuds/notkingyet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "Threads of Silk and Gold", David Goodbody pays Freddie Best a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such an Injury

**Author's Note:**

> _"Such an injury, Mr. Reid, changes a man. Humbles him, in fact."_

The boy was no longer in uniform, but this did not render him unrecognizable. Even the knife was familiar. 

"To what do I owe this pleasure, David?" said Fred, his voice perfectly level despite the armed young man standing between him and his chamber door––the only avenue of escape from the makeshift office in his miniscule flat unless he should choose to fling himself out the window and onto the street below. Opaque as it was, Fred doubted the night's fog would be thick enough to break his fall. 

"Pleasure, Freddie?" said David. "That what this is?" 

"I haven't the faintest idea what this is," said Fred, looking his unexpected guest up and down. 

David's eyes carried dark circles under them. His clothing was nondescript, would blend in with what any boy his age might be wearing in the streets of Whitechapel. As to how he got in––well, Fred's rent wasn't near high enough to ensure any sort of security, and doubtless a boy like David knew how to pick a lock. Fred spared a glance to the knife clenched in David's fist, a pearl-handled switchblade he racked his brain to place. With an internal jolt, he recalled its previous owner. 

"I'm sorry," he said, his tone softening as he looked back to David's hollow face. 

In response, David flicked the blade out of its handle. 

Fred, seated between his desk and his hearth, could not jump back from this motion. Still, he flinched. 

"Sorry?" David repeated in a half-whisper. "What're you sorry for, Freddie?" 

"For your loss," said Fred, realizing even as the words left his lips that this was the wrong answer. 

David's bloodshot eyes narrowed sharply and his teeth ground together. Fred held his breath. At last, David spoke. 

"You know what Vincent kept saying? 'I'm-a see Freddie Best,' he said. 'Freddie will see that we're safe,' he said." 

"I did," Fred protested, "I tried––" 

"You were there," David snarled, his knuckles clenching white around the knife's handle. "I talked to the coppers, I know you were with him, when he––" 

David broke off with a gasping sob, swallowed it down, drew in more air through his teeth, and kept on. 

"Did you keep him safe, Freddie? Or did you run?" 

"I fetched the police––" 

"The police found _you_ ," David shouted, pointing the blade at Fred, "and you kept runnin'! Called for them to help Vincent over your bloody shoulder!" 

Fred had gone quiet in the face of David's accusations. David's arms shook in the ensuing silence, both hands balled into fists, one still wrapped tight around Vincent's knife. 

"That's not true," Fred said at last, softly. 

"Isn't it," said David. 

"Not entirely." 

Fred waited for David to resume shouting, but the boy merely stood there, turning the knife over and over in his fingers, trembling. 

"Won't you sit down?" said Fred, motioning to the only other seat in his flat––his bed, a few feet away from his desk. He didn't particularly want David coming closer, not with that look in his eye like a trapped animal ready to lunge, but he couldn't leave him standing in the middle of the room either. 

"Why?" David shot back, suspicious. Given his line of work, Fred couldn't blame him. 

"Just sit down," said Fred, keeping his voice low, and added, "Please." 

David continued to glare murderously for a moment, then slowly lowered the blade, took the three steps to the bed, and perched on the edge of it. 

"...What really happened, then?" he said. 

There seemed to be something caught in Fred's throat. He coughed to dislodge it, found it was nothing, and spoke, careful to look David in the eye all the while. 

Yes, he explained, he had been with Vincent in his near-to-final moments. Yes, he had run, but David had to understand, the environment was chaotic, one could not tell where Vincent and his pursuer had gone, and if Fred had perished as well he could hardly hope to help Vincent, now could he? So he had run for help, had found it, or help had found him, however David preferred it, but it was too late, and had Vincent only stayed where he was rather than fleeing the copper that Fred had dispatched to help him––well, if wishes were horses beggars would ride, and all that. 

Through all Fred's recitation, David remained silent. 

"He came to you before that, though," said David when Fred had finished. 

"He did," Fred agreed. "And told me nothing. He spoke in riddles, David. He mentioned the bank, but never Quint or Stone or any of the real trouble you were in until it was upon us both. If he'd been honest with me from the beginning, if he'd told me the whole story, I could have..." 

Fred trailed off, his gaze falling to his hand atop his desk, the fingers that curled there, useless. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the knife take another turn in David's palm. 

"What _were_ you involved in?" said Fred suddenly, seeing an opportunity to return to the far more comfortable position of being the one asking questions rather than answering them. 

David took a shuddering breath and answered. 

It was the story Fred had already guessed most of, told poorly and in halting, hesitant words, but with an undertone of affection and grief that Fred found it difficult to steel himself against. A story of two boys who wanted better than they had, who'd taken a bundle of papers, taken a risk deadlier than they could have possibly imagined, and paid a terrible price for it. He listened to it patiently, resisting the urge to press the boy for details––the reporter's instinct being difficult to subdue, but having no place here. 

"I gave the folio to the coppers," said David, bringing his tale to a close, "but they haven't done nothing with it. Should've done like Vincent said and given it to you. You'd've published it all, ruined the bastard." 

Fred held his tongue and kept his gaze on David's face, burying the suicidal urge to flick his eyes over his desk to the locked bottom drawer. He ought to have burned the folio along with the front page he'd mocked up, the articles he'd written. He hadn't, because he was not only a coward but a fool. 

David didn't need to know this. Particularly not with that knife in his hand. 

"It's all right, though," said David, sparing Fred from the task of replying. "I took care of it. He's ruined, all right." 

And now David's own gaze strayed to the knife. Fred followed it, watched the blade turn over and over in the boy's nervous fingers, recalled a headline telling of a banker murdered in his own bath, throat slit, blood coating his floors... and realized with a creeping sense of horror what this lad, this boy, this _child_ had done, the terrible vengeance he had wrought, when Fred himself couldn't even be bring himself to take revenge in print. 

"Oh, David," Fred whispered before he could stop himself. 

David's hands may have trembled, but his chin was up and his mouth set in a firm line. 

"Look me in the eye and tell me I've done wrong," he said. 

"David––" 

"You can't, can you?" 

Fred swallowed. "As far as I'm concerned, you've done absolutely nothing. And it would be absurd to pass moral judgment on nothing." 

This was clearly not the answer David had been hoping for, but he accepted it quietly enough. The knife snapped shut. 

Silence settled over them. In that silence, Fred reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle and two glasses. David didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at it, just took the glass Fred offered him. They drank. Fred neglected to re-fill the glasses. 

"You couldn't help Vincent," David said after a long while. 

Fred shook his head. 

David swallowed hard, stared down into his empty glass, and asked, "Could you help me?" 

An intelligent man would say no. A sharp-minded man would have thought of a way to signal for the police by now. 

Fred said, "What sort of help?" 

David shrugged. Fred sighed. 

"You can't stay here." 

"Why not?" 

"For God's sake, David, think of how it would look!" 

"You care an awful lot about looks for a man missing an ear." 

Fred blinked at him, shocked, and stifled a hysterical bark of laughter. Silence reigned for another moment. 

"I can get you a job," said Fred. "A proper one, at the newspaper. I don't suppose you can set type?" 

David glared at him, but said, "I can learn." 

The corners of Fred's mouth twitched. 

"Good. You'll start off sweeping, of course, but you're clever enough. Should advance quickly. Not too quick, mind. And don't call me 'Freddie' at the office." 

David gave this a moment's thought, then nodded his agreement. Fred let out a silent sigh of relief. 

"As for that knife," he began, and David instantly tensed again. 

"It's all I have," he said, and his voice broke at last. "All I have of him––" 

Fred gently shushed the boy's threatened sobs. 

"I know," he said soothingly, "but it's evidence, David. If the coppers recognize it you're done for sure." 

"I don't care!" said David, but his tone was petulant and childish, lacking conviction. 

"You might not, but I do," said Fred. "Someone's got to." 

David bit his lip and dropped his gaze to the knife. He flicked it open, shut it again, ran his fingers over the mother-of-pearl handle. 

"You'll take care of it for me?" he said. "Not chuck it away, but keep it safe?" 

Fred waited until David was composed enough to look him in the eye again, then nodded. With a shaking hand, David held the knife out, and Fred plucked it from his fingers and set it on the desk. 

"Good," he said, then stood up, motioning for David to do the same. "You've a place to stay for the night?" 

David claimed he did. Fred couldn't tell whether or not he was telling the truth. He supposed it didn't matter. 

"Report to the Star offices first thing tomorrow," he said as he led David out of the room into what passed for a foyer. "Ask for a job. If they ask after your former employment, tell them you were a shopkeep's assistant, a bank clerk, anything but a bloody telegraph boy. Change your surname while you're at it. You're smart, they'll see it, you'll be hired, we'll be strangers. All right?" 

David nodded again, then paused, lips slightly parted. 

"You've not asked after Harry," he said. 

Fred thought it might have been kinder of the boy to put a fist in his gut. 

"Have you seen him?" said Fred, working to keep his voice light and unconcerned. 

"No," said David. 

"Then it's rather pointless of me to ask you about him, isn't it," said Fred, the words coming out sharp despite his best efforts. 

The look David gave him turned the discomforting, inexplicable ache in his stomach into a sharp pang. 

"Get some sleep," said Fred. "You've got a hard day's work ahead of you tomorrow." 

"Freddie?" said David. 

"Yes?" said Fred. 

"Thanks." 

David dropped his head as he said it, and the word came out half-mumbled. Fred forced a smile. 

"Us pansies have to look out for each other, you know," he said, putting a paternal hand on David's shoulder. 

David managed a weak smile in return, said good-night, and departed. 

Fred double-checked the lock on his door, considered putting a chair under the knob, decided that gesture would be pure paranoia, and settled instead for sitting back down at his desk and fiddling with the knife upon it, flicking it open and shut. There was no point going to bed. Sleep didn't come easily, and when it arrived it brought visions of hulking figures in alleys and bloodied bodies of boys upon the ground, tripping Fred in his desperate flight. 

A second glass of gin later, the knife joined the folio in the locked drawer, alongside a pile of photographs a sensible man would have destroyed.


End file.
